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Tag: Montana landscape in felt

Green nuno felt with applique cutouts in place to create Indian Paintbrush largest foreground flower.
Indian Paintbrush Applique Process

Indian Paintbrush Applique Process

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I have started working on the green nuno felt that I showed you several weeks ago.

Nuno felted green silk with highlights of orange.

Here’s where I left off and you will see that I eventually turn this piece so that the orange bits were at the top instead of the bottom.

Fabric and photos laid out on work surface before beginning applique process.

I looked through my stash to see what fabric I had that would work with my inspiration photos of Indian Paintbrush. I have tons of photos that I have taken of wildflowers so I printed out some that were closer and some that were farther away.

Green nuno felt beside tracing paper and scaling photos of Indian Paintbrush flowers on copy machine.

Next, I needed to scale the foreground flowers up a bit. I do that on my copy machine and then use the photos to trace the design on to tracing paper.

Light box with photo of Indian Paintbrush and tracing paper on top. Partially drawn design with pencil.

I use my light box to trace the design on to the tracing paper.

Green nuno felt beside tracing paper with Indian Paintbrush flowers designs drawn in pencil.

Here’s the design beside the background nuno felt. I have turned it around so the orange is towards the top and further in the background to represent more flowers.

The next step is to copy the designs on to freezer paper. I picked out which petals I wanted to be a darker orange and transferred the petal shapes on to freezer paper. I decided to leave the edges of the fabric raw when I appliqued them down since Indian Paintbrush have ragged edges. Therefore, if there’s fraying, it’s not a big deal.

Then I cut out the flower shapes, some in darker orange and some in lighter orange. The fabric is all hand dyed so it has color changes throughout and looks more natural for flowers. I then peeled off the freezer paper to see what the flower would look like on the background. At some point, I decided to leave the freezer paper in place as it was preventing too much fraying before I started stitching the pieces down.

Green nuno felt covered by tracing paper and applique cutouts in place to create Indian Paintbrush flowers.

Here are all the pieces in place over the tracing paper which is laid on top of the nuno felt. I haven’t decided if I need to add anything else or not. I think I will stitch the small flowers down on the background and then lay out all the foreground flowers and decide if it needs other flowers or grass or… More to come!

Artwork Taken to 4 Ravens Gallery and a Start to a New Piece

Artwork Taken to 4 Ravens Gallery and a Start to a New Piece

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Lots of people have asked to see my artwork again after it’s framed. I got three pieces back from the framers and took my work down to 4 Ravens Gallery  in Missoula, Montana yesterday.

Framed textile artwork depicting a landscape with sunlight streaming between two tree trunks on to foreground of rocks and flowers.

Sunlit Dance 14″ x 16″

Textile artwork felted landscape depicting an autumn tree.

Autumn Symphony 14″ x 16″

Textile artwork depicting a felted tree trunk with a branch, leaves and lichen.

Hanging On 14″ x 28″

If you are interested in any of these pieces, please contact 4 Ravens Gallery directly.

Now on to the next piece! I found another piece of hand dyed silk in my stash and it’s ready for nuno felting.

Green hand dyed silk with orange highlights.

Here’s the piece of silk. I have decided to try another floral based piece. I haven’t created one of those for a while, so ‘gasp’, no trees. The bits of orange remind me of Indian Paintbrush so I think I will see what I can come up with based on those as the main wild flower.

I went searching through the wool that my friend Paula gave me and found this lovely white merino that seems to be about 18-21  micron. I have run out of prefelt but this will work great for nuno felting.

Nuno felted green silk with highlights of orange.

Here is the piece after I have felted it. Now on to designing the flowers and background.

 

 

 

Wet felted landscape stitched on to brown fabric for matting.
Red Tree Landscape Completed

Red Tree Landscape Completed

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Wet felted wool landscape with a red leafed tree on a hill.

When I last posted about my red tree landscape, this is what it looked like. On to adding machine stitching. My goal was not to add “too much” stitching, just a few branches,  darker shadows and some highlights.

Wet felted landscape, tree branches added with machine stitching.

First up was adding a few more branches to the tree. I was happy with that, so on I went.

Wet felted landscape, dark brown added into shadows with machine stitching.

Since I had the dark brown thread already in the machine, I decided to add some into the bushes and greenery to make some branches and shadows. Here is where I started going wrong. I need to remember next time, not to make a “solid” line fully across the piece. I needed to leave more gaps in between the dark brown areas.

Wet felted landscape, more dark brown added with machine stitching.

Then I added even more brown stitching into the green bushes on the right. This was definitely overkill and I wasn’t really happy with the result. But I kept going.

Wet felted landscape, grey green added into foreground with machine stitching.

I decided to add some grey green into the foreground so I would have some line added but not as dark as the brown. Again, I should allow some spaces in between instead of one complete line. It’s not a straight line but it does need some breaks.

Wet felted landscape, light green added into foreground with machine stitching.

Next I decided to add light green into the foreground lighter bushes. I did a better job breaking these up a little bit instead of going all the way across the bush.

Wet felted landscape in closer view showing machine stitching.

Here’s a close up and you can see the areas that I was not happy with, the dark brown over the light green bush and some of the dark brown under the red bushes. So I started unpicking stitches. This was painful since I had stitched pretty densely in areas and back over some areas. This was the reason for less stitching, I did okay, but still could have done better with less stitching.

Wet felted landscape with machine stitching completed.

Here it is with the stitching and unstitching complete. I considered taking out some of the dark brown on the right side by the further green bushes but decided to just leave it. Hopefully, it just gives it a bit more distance. The lesson for this one was that even less than I think, is enough stitching!

Wet felted landscape stitched on to brown fabric for matting.

Here’s the piece after stitching it down to brown “matting” fabric. I still need to lace it over matt board but it’s pinned and ready to be laced. Then it will go in the pile of pieces that need to go to the framer.

I haven’t come up with a satisfactory name for this one yet. Do you have any ideas?

 

Nuno felt landscape of the forest floor completed and laced to backing board with dark brown fabric.
Forest Floor Landscape Completed

Forest Floor Landscape Completed

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Finally, I hear you saying. I have finished the forest floor nuno felt landscape that I have been working on since October.

Nuno felt landscape of the forest floor with leaves pinned in place.

I pinned the leaves in place and hand stitched them down. I also did a bit of trimming on the leaves that were further back in the landscape to give a feeling of distance.

Nuno felt landscape of the forest floor with leaves stitched in place.

Here they are stitched in place. I also added a few bits of darkness to leaves that were partially in the shade. I used a green felt tip pen for this.

Nuno felt landscape of the forest floor auditioning cut paper flower placement.

And next, I auditioned flowers. Those of you who are felt purists, look away. I cut the flowers out of sketchbook paper. I think the contrast between the smoothness of the flowers and the matte fuzziness of the felt leaves make the flowers stand out more. Then I needed to make sure the flowers on the left were in the shade so I used a bit of Payne’s Grey watercolor to create the “shade”.

Nuno felt landscape of the forest floor with stitched yellow centers in cut paper flowers.

The flowers were stitched down with French knots and wool thread. The flowers on the left have a bit darker yellow than the ones in the “sunshine”.

Nuno felt landscape of the forest floor completed and laced to backing board with dark brown fabric.

I even got the piece stitched down to the background matte fabric and laced around a piece of matte board. So it is ready for framing, Yay! I have decided to call this one “Sunlit Dance”. Not sure what is on the agenda next but perhaps I should think of something to cover for the first quarter challenge.

Nuno Felt Background with appliqued felt rocks and sheer fabric cast shadows stitched in place.
Forest Floor Update

Forest Floor Update

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I have continued to make slow progress on my forest floor piece. Since I showed you last, I have stitched down the rocks and added some shadows.

Nuno Felt Background with appliqued felt rocks stitched in place.

I decided on the final rock placement and then stitched them in place. I moved the rock that is now on the top right over from the left since it was much lighter. This reinforces the feeling of the light shining from behind the trees. Once the rocks were stitched in place, I decided they needed a bit more definition as they kind of looked like potatoes to me.

I remembered a book about nature journaling that I had checked out from the library by John Muir Laws. I decided to look him up online to see if he had some information about drawing rocks. I found a wealth of information on his site about drawing in nature. If you would like to improve your drawing skills, this is an excellent resource.

Photo of forest floor piece with tracing paper and rock shadows sketched in with pencil.

I took the photo from above and printed it out. Then I used a piece of tracing paper to sketch the rock placement. Then I used hatching techniques to give some shape to the rocks. These aren’t specific rocks. I find it much easier to draw/sketch when I have a photo of what I am trying to draw or I can look at a specific rock or landscape. But they look more like rocks than potatoes now.

I decided to use the same blue that is already in the nuno background for the shadows. That would tie all the blue bits in as shadows and move the blue over on to the right side of the composition too. I used a straight stitch to do the “hatching” on the rocks using #12 Sulky cotton thread. Once those shadows were in, I knew I needed to add cast shadows from the rock on to the ground. So I brought out my navy blue sheer fabric to create some cast shadows.

Nuno Felt Background with appliqued felt rocks and sheer fabric cast shadows stitched in place.

Here’s the piece after adding the sheer fabric around the rocks. I stitched the sheer fabric down with #40 machine thread with tiny stitches. Now guess what? I need more shadows in front of the trees. It’s always funny to me that I am working along and when some shadows are added, I can immediately see that I need more. So the next step is more sheer blue fabric to add the cast shadows from the trees. Then I will begin adding more leaves and the white flowers so that it will resemble my original collage below.

Paper collage of landscape of forest floor, white flowers and tree trunks in the distance.

 

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice

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I don’t know about the rest of you but this time of year seems to move a bit too quickly. There are always extra things on my to do list during the holidays. Then this year, the football games I attend have been extended way beyond the normal season. The University of Montana Grizzly football team has made it into the national championships.

All of this to say, that I haven’t gotten much done on my forest floor piece that I showed you before.  So my post this week is going to be a bit short on fiber art content but I hope you will forgive me.

Nuno Felted Autumn Background with two felt tree trunks and stitched cheesecloth "moss".

Here’s my progress on the forest floor piece. I have stitched down the trunks and the cheesecloth moss. Next up, is to work more on the foreground rocks, and add leaves and flowers.

Since this post is publishing on the Winter Solstice, I thought you might enjoy a poem about winter.

THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER

So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us—Listen!!

All the long echoes sing the same delight,

This shortest day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

 

Happy Winter Solstice to you all and all the best in the new year!

Nuno felted background with stitched felt stumps, felt rocks and cheesecloth moss.
Slow Progress on Forest Floor

Slow Progress on Forest Floor

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I have made a bit of slow progress on my forest floor piece. If you missed my first post, you can see the beginnings here.

Nuno felt background with small stitch samples of running stitch and wrapped cords.

The next step was to do a bit of stitch sampling on the tree trunks. I had been making some wrapped cords that I thought might look nice stitched down to give tree trunk texture but they were too large a scale for the size of the trunks as you can see on the left side. Then I started searching for a stitch that I thought would look nice as texture on the bark. After looking at some complex stitches, I suddenly remembered the KISS principle (keep it simple …). So I decided to try running stitch. It is a much better scale and simple to stitch, the winner!

So I stitched on both trunks. The left photo was taking a look at how they were going to be on the background. I decided they still needed more stitching and added a bit more running stitch. I used a lightweight wool thread as I didn’t want to have a contrast from the wool trunk to a shinier thread such as cotton or silk.

Nuno felted background with stitched felt stumps, felt rocks and cheesecloth moss.

Now on to adding more of the foreground elements. Keeping in mind that I want to highlight the streak of “sunshine” from back left to right foreground, I placed three pieces of felt cut into perhaps rock shapes as well as adding some “moss” with cheesecloth. This is how far I have gotten. I think the rocks need some stitching to add a bit more shadow/darker values. That’s the next thing to sample.

 

Paper collage of landscape of forest floor, white flowers and tree trunks in the distance.
Forest Floor Beginnings

Forest Floor Beginnings

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I went through some of my sketchbooks/workbooks from my prior classes recently and found a few pieces that were inspiring. It’s nice to revisit old work and see if there is something there that will inspire new work.

Paper collage of landscape of forest floor, white flowers and tree trunks in the distance.

Here’s the forest floor collage that I found. I thought that this would make a nice landscape in fiber/textiles. I can’t seem to find the original photo that I used for inspiration so I’m working from the collage.

Multi colored nuno felt background.

Going through my pieces of already made nuno felt, I thought this piece would work. The top right corner made me think of “forest sky” and mottled light, so that’s a good start. The size is 12.5″ wide and 11″ high. Most of you will probably recognize this nuno felt as I have used it for several projects already. But the fun thing with this type of project, is that the background is just the start and the finished pieces will not look alike but would go together well if paired with one of my other pieces.

Next up was to look through my boxes of felt scraps and see if I could find something that would work for the more distant tree trunks. I started with the felt on the left but once I put it down, the value of the tree trunk to the background was too similar and the grey brown wasn’t very “exciting”. The middle felt trunks are actually the opposite side of the trunks on the right. The values were a bit better and I am leaning towards the ones on the right. I am planning on adding some stitched texture to the bark and can add more darkness into the trunks that way. I luckily have enough of this felt to do some sampling and see what kind of stitching will work best. Also, after I uploaded these photos and saw the tree trunks from a distance (smaller photo size), I noticed that it looked like the light was slanting through the trees. I need to remember to leave that lightness in the foreground to give that effect.

Multi colored nuno background with felt tree trunks placed on background and other felt colors being tried for appropriateness to landscape.

I continued to look through my felt scraps and dyed fabric. I found some nice greens, some “fallen trees” or “rocks” and some cheesecloth that will add texture. I kept looking for felt or fabric that would work for the flowers, I couldn’t really find anything that worked. I could felt some small white flowers but I’m not sure it’s worth that effort. The white flower I am showing is cut from watercolor paper (300 pound) and the center is a bit of yellow green cheesecloth. The paper would be simpler as it doesn’t fray and I noticed the contrasting sheen of the paper compared to the matte of the felt. The paper can also be shaped so it is 3D and coming off the surface of the landscape. As you can see in this photo, I have lost that brightness coming through the trees as I have it covered with green. This is just trying out colors and the final layout and shapes of pieces to applique down has not been decided.

Multi colored nuno felt background folded back to show white felt backing behind.

Because the nuno felt is thin, I decided I needed to back it with something a bit heavier to hold the weight of the heavier felt I will be stitching to the front. So I cut a piece of rayon wool commercial felt blend to the same size as the nuno background.

Multi colored nuno felt basted to white felt backing.

Next up was basting these two pieces of fabric together. I don’t always baste but I have found that in general, it’s better to take the time to baste the backing fabric to the background fabric. The integrity of the piece is always better after basting. It holds everything in place and provides support while stitching the foreground items. This is especially true if you are machine stitching as the machine has a tendency to move the nuno fabric in different directions than the backing fabric. Basting rant is now over.

Next, I will be doing some sampling to see how I want to stitch the tree trunks and previewing the green fabrics. More coming soon!

 

 

Nuno Felted Landscape with Autumn Birch Trees and leaf litter on the ground.
Calling Down from the Branches

Calling Down from the Branches

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This is the final installment of my large nuno felted autumn landscape, it is finally finished and I have even stretched it over stretcher bars so it is ready to go the framer next week. It is my entry for the 4th Quarter Challenge  of the year long tree challenge. I’m way ahead this time. Yay!

In my last post, I was trying to determine how to handle the ground and prevent the background trees from “floating”. I decided to try leaf litter on the ground. I used the same fabric and paper that I used for the leaves on the branches. You can see on the left hand photo the first attempt. I had some leaves that were already cut out but these were much too big. It made the ground move forward since the leaves were the same size as the foreground tree leaves. Not the look I wanted. So I cut the leaves into tiny pieces and scattered them about. I didn’t want to bore you with all of the time I took arranging the leaves. You can see the progression from left to right. I had taken over 10 photos of this progression but thought I would show the first, middle and last photos. Perhaps you can tell a difference that way! Once I had the leaves where I wanted them, I glued them down with an archival gel medium. I don’t usually use glue but these pieces were so small, I thought that was the best option.

Next up was to determine the color of the “matte”. This is the fabric that I stitch the nuno felt down on to hold it in place for framing. I decided to go with the darker grey fabric. Then I stitched along the edges of the nuno felt to hold it to the background fabric. Normally, I would then lace the fabric over matte board or foam core but this piece is big and I decided to use stretcher bars instead. The stretcher bar frame is 23″ x 34″. I wrapped the fabric around the stretcher bars and stapled it in place. The hardest part of that process is getting the nuno felt landscape in the right position since you staple from the back side.

Nuno Felted Landscape with Autumn Birch Trees and leaf litter on the ground.

Here’s the piece on the stretcher bars ready to be framed. I will use my usual slim black frame. Did anyone notice anything else that was changed at the very end? Calling Down from the Branches is now ready to go to the framers and then off to the gallery.

Autumn colored nuno felted background with silk paper birch trees, stitched branches and silk fabric leaves partially stitched in place.
Large Autumn Landscape – Adding Leaves

Large Autumn Landscape – Adding Leaves

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I have been continuing to make progress with my large autumn landscape.

Autumn colored nuno felted background with silk paper birch trees, stitched branches and set up with thread, scissors, cut out silk leaves and reference photo.

I began by looking for silk fabric in the correct colors. I found a yellow orange and a yellow green. But I needed a lighter mid yellow. I didn’t have that in silk fabric but I remembered some rice paper that I had painted yellow and coated with matte medium. I could use that for leaves too. To prevent the silk leaves from fraying as much, I ironed a light weight fusible to the back side of the fabric. Then I cut out a variety of leaf shapes. The secret to making leaves look more natural is just cut them out freely by hand. The shapes will be all different and the sizes won’t be exactly the same but that is what you want. I found a photo online to give me an idea on how the leaves should look and used that for inspiration.

Autumn colored nuno felted background with silk paper birch trees, stitched branches and silk fabric leaves partially stitched in place.

When I was stitching the leaves down, I wanted some movement and the feeling of the leaves about to fall. Therefore, I only stitched them down with one or two straight stitches. This allowed the fabric leaf to come out from the background and be more three dimensional.

Autumn colored nuno felted background with silk paper birch trees, stitched branches and stitching more silk fabric leaves.

Cutting and stitching individual leaves takes a bit of time but I liked the result.

Autumn colored nuno felted background with silk paper birch trees, stitched branches and silk fabric leaves.

Here’s the piece after adding leaves. I may add a few more in a couple of places but I am evaluating now to see what else the piece might need. I haven’t cut off the bottom edge but I will be doing that shortly. I could add fallen leaves at the base of the background trees. Or I could add a bit of grass here and there. Or I could leave it alone. What’s your vote?

My idea for a name for this one is “Calling Down from the Branches”.